Everyone will make a 10-minute presentation to the class that summarizes the main points of his/her term paper to be followed by 5 minutes of questions.  You will be graded partly on content (knowledge of the question) and partly on communication skills (the organization of the materials and how effectively you get your points across).  The presentation accounts for 10% of the final grade.

This is a useful opportunity to work on a necessary skill that will help you in the future (job interviews, wedding speeches, oral reports, conferences).  Public speaking in some form is hard to avoid.  The following suggestions might prove helpful:

1) Be prepared.  Don’t go on too long, or stop way short of the time limit.  We cannot all be fascinating, funny, or profound, but everyone can make sure she/he speaks for the expected amount of time.  This requires preparation and timing your talk in advance.  It normally takes about 2<2.5 minutes to read a page of double-spaced typing. However, don’t just read a prepared text; it is much better if you can speak from notes.

2) Be selective.  As in the term paper, you will need an introduction, development, and conclusion, but time will allow you only to concentrate on the main issues.  Pick what is most important and interesting. You can’t say it all. 

3) Be intelligible.  (a) Make sure you give your audience the information they need to understand your topic.   (b) Speak clearly, in grammatical sentences, without verbal garbage (kinda, errrrr, like you know, etc.)

4) Be confident.  If you cannot pretend what you are saying is interesting, probably no one else will think so.  Yet this doesn’t take much.  People wantto be interested.  A good way to feel secure is knowing how you will start and end.  So, prepare delivering your opening and closing lines (the most important of your talk).  Once past square one, things should start to flow.  And, if you are running out of time, it’s good to have an exit-strategy to cut to.

Return to HIS 4930.